Attendees purchase DNA kits at the 23andMe booth at the RootsTech annual genealogical event in Salt Lake City, Utah, on Feb. 28, 2019.GEORGE FREY/Reuters

Wendy Wong is a professor of political science and Principal’s Research Chair at the University of British Columbia. Her book We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age, won the 2024 Balsillie Prize for Public Policy.

We’ve all learned some unsettling lessons about data recently: Our digital lives carry consequences that are unintentional and often unpredictable. Perhaps no one has felt these lessons more intensely in recent weeks than U.S. national security advisor Michael Waltz.

Setting aside for just a moment that few of us carry the heavy burden and responsibility of access to military and national security information, texting the wrong person is something that many (if not all) of us have done at one time or another. By inadvertently including The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg in a Signal group chat that detailed the planned bombing of Houthi rebels in Yemen, Mr. Waltz showed a carelessness with communications technology and allegedly classified national security information. He also showed just how awkward it can get when screenshots can render self-deleting messages permanent.

Beyond texting, what about some of the most personal and unique information about us: our DNA? The more than 15 million customers of the genetic-testing company 23andMe were recently........

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